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Comic Book Review: The Immortal Iron Fist: The Last Iron Fist Story written by Ed Brubaker & Matt Fraction, primary artist David Aja

When Daniel Rand was nine years old, his father Wendell Rand took him, his mother Heather, and business partner Harold Meachum on an expedition to the mystical city of K’un L’un, which appears in the mountains of China only once every ten years. When Danny slipped into a crevasse, endangering his parents, Meachum, who was in love with Heather, treacherously murdered Wendell. Heather refused to go with Meachum, and continued onward with her son. They came across a bridge that hadn’t been there before, but a pack of wolves attacked. Heather sacrificed herself to give Danny time to cross the bridge. Archers from K’un L’un attempted to rescue Heather, but were unable to drive away the wolves before her death.

As the years passed inside the mystical city, Danny Rand became the best martial arts student of Lei Kung, the city’s guardian. Eventually, he was allowed to battle the dragon Shou-Lao the Undying and plunge his fist into its heart. This branded his chest with the crest of Shou-Lao, and gave Danny the ability to focus his ch’i energy into his fist, making it like unto a thing of iron. He is not the first Iron Fist, but questions about the past ones are not encouraged.

At the next opportunity, Danny left K’un L’un to seek revenge upon Harold Meachum, a quest that ultimately proved hollow. He instead embarked upon a career as the martial arts superhero Iron Fist.

Iron Fist was created by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane as part of a martial arts fad at Marvel Comics inspired by the popularity of kung fu movies at the time. He first appeared in Marvel Premiere #15 in 1974, ran for ten issues, then got his own starring series. It was notable for the rare second-person narration. (“You are Iron Fist, and you are about to die!”) When sales fell, Danny Rand was teamed up with blaxploitation-inspired character Luke Cage in Power Man and Iron Fist. As the “Heroes for Hire”, they became an iconic team for Marvel.

The volume under discussion here appeared in 2007, after several status changes (including being dead for a while) for Iron Fist. As of the opening of this series, Daniel Rand is the head of Rand International, the company his father and Harold Meachum had founded. They have been approached by the Chinese corporation Wai-Go Industries, which wants to buy mag-lev train technology and infrastructure from Rand Intl. Danny senses something wrong with the deal, and cancels it, much to the dismay of Jeryn Hogarth, the person who actually runs the company for Danny.

Investigating the offices of Wai-Go as Iron Fist, the hero learns that the company is actually a front for the terrorist organization HYDRA, and is forced to battle their agents and their latest weapon, the Mechagorgon.

Ordinarily, Iron Fist would call in his allies in the superhero community to assist with a threat of this size, but this series takes place during the Civil War event, when all superhumans are required to register their identities with the government or else. Many of his friends have joined the pro-Registration side, which Danny is opposed to, and the remainder are now fugitives. (Iron Fist only remains free due to a legal loophole.)

At about the same time, the Steel Serpent resurfaces. Davos, the son of Lei Kung, believes that the power of the Iron Fist is his by right, and has frequently tried to steal it from Danny. He has come to believe there is a conspiracy to keep him from attaining the Iron Fist. (Mild spoiler: he’s not entirely wrong.) Steel Serpent has allied with HYDRA and a previously unknown being called the Crane Mother, and is looking for a man named Orson Randall.

Orson Randall (the name is probably not a coincidence) turns out to have been the previous holder of the Iron Fist title, one of the Immortal Weapons. He relinquished the title and disappeared for reasons not adequately explained in this volume, but can still tap into the power of Shou-Lao. Flushed out of hiding, Orson seeks out Danny Rand to give the newest Iron Fist some vital information about their legacy.

Lots of kung-fu action ensues!

As the original Iron Fist stories were inspired by the low-budget kung-fu flicks of the early 1970s, this one is heavily influenced by the special effects extravaganzas of the more recent wuxia movies. There are mystical kung fu powers being unleashed right and left, and huge battle scenes. The art goes well with this, including some nifty effects to show how Iron Fist finds the precise areas to attack.

Iron Fist’s backstory is somewhat problematic these days, given its use of the Mighty Whitey trope (white person goes to foreign land and is better at what the natives do than they are themselves.) This series tries to mitigate it somewhat by revealing a more diverse array of past Iron Fists, and hinting in this volume that there’s a specific reason the last two have been Caucasian. (It remains to be seen how the upcoming Netflix series will deal with the issue.)

Orson Randall is a good guest star as a pulp hero gone sour, and with hints at his own extensive backstory and heritage.

Most of the plot threads are still left dangling at the end of this volume, to be resolved later in the series. The volume also contains a short piece referring to a period when Danny Rand was wearing the costume of Daredevil while Matt Murdock was otherwise occupied.

Overall, a good update to the Iron Fist concept and a rollicking adventure story.

Book Review: From Ghouls to Gangsters: The Career of Arthur B. Reeve Volume 1 edited by John Locke

Arthur B. Reeve (1880-1936) was a newspaper reporter who decided to try his hand at writing fiction. As it happened, he turned out to be very good at it, making a huge hit with his most famous character, scientific detective Craig Kennedy. He became America’s most popular detective story writer from 1910-1920, and continued to do pretty well thereafter (despite a bankruptcy when a man who’d commissioned a bunch of work failed to pay) until his death. Mr. Reeve also worked on films and radio, and did true crime reporting as well.

This first volume is a collection of short stories; the second volume has non-fiction by and about Mr. Reeve. The first story appears to be his first sale, “The Cat that Didn’t Come Back” (1907), a gruesome but comedic tale of a man attempting to dispose of a cat’s corpse. The majority of stories are about Craig Kennedy, a professor of chemistry who decides to use his knowledge of science to solve crimes. He’s assisted by newspaper reporter Walter Jameson, the Watson-like narrator.

We begin with the 1910 story “The Case of Helen Bond.” A man has died of a heart attack, but the fact that his safe was burgled the same night casts a suspicion of foul play. Mr. Kennedy uses a primitive type of lie detector (and his brain) to crack the case. The professor owes a great deal to Sherlock Holmes, but is considerably less eccentric. In the Holmes tradition, the reader is not given all the clues, but must wait for Mr. Kennedy to sum up the case and how the science plays in.

That story was published in Cosmopolitan, but Kennedy stories appeared in many places, including Boys’ Life (which introduced a young nephew for him) and Country Gentleman. By the 1930s, Mr. Reeve’s stories mostly appeared in the detective pulps, and took on a more “gangbusters” feel. He was also beginning to reuse plot beats from earlier, out of print stories.

The science in some of the stories is a bit dated, particularly the case that’s solved by Freudian dream analysis. As well, period ethnic prejudice pops up from time to time. Mr. Reeve appears to have been progressive in his views of women for 1910, but some bits look odd from a modern perspective.

Mr. Reeve wrote several stories with female protagonists as detectives, including medical Dr. Mary Mannix and “secret agent” Clare Kendall. One of the latter’s stories closes out the volume, “The Royal Racket” (1935). Clare helps identify two corpses, and is then asked to advise a young couple that suspects some of their new social crowd might be less than honest. The two cases are of course connected.

The Boys’ Life story “The Polar Flight of the ZR-10” (1924) is notable for not being so much a mystery as a speculative fiction story. The title dirigible is being used to test a transpolar flight route between America and Europe, and finds a long-lost colony of Vikings. The mystery subplot arises from a “beat the Reds” race that feels more 1950s than 1920s.

Overall, the stories are good, if mostly dated, and demonstrate Mr. Reeve’s ability to write to a specific magazine’s intended audience. Most of the earlier stories were heavily edited for book publication to make them pseudo-novels, and the later ones have never been reprinted before, which makes this a good collector’s item for detective story fans.

Disclaimer: I received this boxed set as a Goodreads giveaway on the premise that I would review it.

Little Bao is a farm boy who loves the Chinese operas performed at the spring festivals every year. But one year a foreign devil, a missionary, appears and disrupts the festival, destroying the image of the Earth god that protects the village. Disaster follows soon thereafter, both for the village and for Bao’s family.

Bao comes to hate the Christian missionaries and their foreign backers, as well as the “secondary devils”, Chinese who have converted to the Christian faith. The government is in the pocket of the foreigners, but eventually Bao becomes part of a liberation movement, the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fist.

Four-Girl is an unwanted child, a fourth daughter who is so unwelcomed by her own family that they don’t even give her an actual name. Called a “devil”, she resolves to become the best devil she can be–and this leads her to Christianity. In that community, she finds things she never had before: cookies, compassion, acceptance, and the ability to choose her own name (Vibiana) and purpose in life.

It’s too bad that the Boxers are going around killing all the Christians.

This pair of graphic novels by Gene Luen Yang, creator of American Born Chinese, are set during the Boxer Rebellion (primarily 1899-1901) and are reflections of each other. Both Bao and Vibiana find themselves unable to accept their circumstances, and rebel in different ways. These counterpart viewpoints cross over during their stories, showing that events have more than one interpretation, and the cruel ironies of incomplete information.

Bao and Vibiana also both have spiritual experiences, Bao channels Ch’in Shih-huang, the first Emperor of China, who turns out to be a very demanding ghost. Vibiana has visions of Joan of Arc, who encourages the young woman to seek her own path, but whose final fate foreshadows the ending of both stories.

As these books are fictional versions for the young adult audience, historical events have been simplified somewhat. to fit into the narrative. No side ends up the “good guys” however. The Harmonious Fist has high principles, but not everyone in their group keeps all of them, and even Bao finds himself committing atrocities. Father Bey, an antagonist in Boxers, is a more sympathetic character in Saints, but his judgmental nature and bluntness cause more than one bad outcome.

Trigger Warning: Bao’s brothers bully him initially, though they come to respect him later. Four-Girl goes through years of emotional abuse, ending in a cold-blooded act of physical abuse that drives Vibiana away from her family forever.

These graphic novels cover a period of history that most Westerners are likely unfamiliar with beyond a brief mention in World History or the Yellow Peril literature of the early Twentieth Century. They are best read back-to-back, and now come in a boxed set for that purpose. Parents should consider reading these with their young adults to discuss some of the more difficult subject matter, and checking out the Further Reading in the back which lists more scholarly looks at the history.